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There’s nothing better than the smell of a slowly simmering pot roast cooking on a cold winter day. In the slow cooker, tough cuts of beef get meltingly tender, and you can really season them however you’d like. We grew up eating a simple beef roast seasoned with salt and pepper, garlic, and onion, but thanks to Martha Stewart, we’re ready to branch out. She just shared a recipe for a truly vibrant looking Italian slow cooker beef roast flavored with oranges, fennel, and other fragrant and tasty Italian-inspired ingredients, and it looks like just the revamp our classic pot roast recipe has been needing.

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Stewart knows a thing or two about using the slow cooker – she even has a cookbook of slow cooker recipes. One of the keys to developing deeper flavors in slow cooker recipes is searing your meat before it goes into your cooker. It’s an extra step that does take extra time, but the enhanced flavor is so worth it. If you have a slow-cooker/pressure cooker combo that lets you sear right in the cooking vessel, even better.

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To start this recipe, you’ll want to season the beef a day ahead of time if you can remember. If not, just add salt and pepper right before cooking, and sear the beef on all sides until browned.

Then, remove the beef from the skillet and add it to your slow cooker. Add shallots to the skillet, then deglaze the pan with wine, and add that mixture to your slow cooker with the beef. Add in a can of tomatoes, a bulb of fennel cut into wedges, a sprig of rosemary, and two strips of orange zest, all of which will infuse your meat with robust Italian flavor.

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The beef will slow-cook for about 4 1/2 hours on high, until it’s tender enough to be shredded with a fork. Stir in the Castelvetrano olives (they have a delicious, almost creamy flavor), which add a nice pop of briny flavor to cut through the richness of the meat, and garnish with orange wedges to squeeze over the whole dish.

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The combination of rosemary, fennel, orange, and olives will make you feel like you’re eating a slow-cooked beef dish in the Tuscan countryside, rather than the same old, plain-old pot roast you’re used to.

Before you go, check out our slideshow below:

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